Information technology is nowadays broadly applicable to fields such as social administration, communication, education and commerce. Information equipment has also become an essential electronic consumer product for every family. Thus, it is considered important for humans to acquire general operating knowledge and application skills relevant to the information equipment as early as possible.
For most families, however, it is not easy to make all children have a positive learning attitude with the use of the information equipment. As teenagers often lack an ability to tell right from wrong and to appropriately control and manage themselves, long-term addiction to virtual cyberspace and computer games not only causes them to be unable to concentrate on studying but also leads to unhealthy mental and physical development. Therefore, these teenagers may suffer “Internet Addition Disorders (IAD)” or other physiological syndromes due to abuse of the information equipment.
Thus, if usage time of the information equipment can be strictly controlled, the time spent on the information equipment by the teenager would be limited according to practical situations while preventing data stored in the information equipment from being stolen or accessed without authorization of the owner of the information equipment.
In light of the above problem, it has been proposed a power lock applicable to information equipment, by which the power lock is able to cut off internal circuits of the information equipment such that the information equipment cannot be switched on and an unauthorized user is unable to operate the information equipment. However, this method is not perfect as it reduces opportunities for the teenagers to use the information equipment and influences their basic abilities of operating the information equipment.
Accordingly, Chinese Patent No. 02289108.0 has disclosed a “Computer Timing Shutdown Device”, as shown in FIG. 1, which comprises a computer 1, an external control unit 2, and an actuating unit 3 that is connected to the computer 1 via a connector 32 and connected to the external control unit 2 via a connector 33. By inserting a key element 4 into a keyhole 31 of the actuating unit 3, a usage time limit of the computer 1 can be initiated and set. When the key element 4 is removed from the actuating unit 3, a timing mode is immediately activated and the computer 1 would automatically shuts down if usage time has exceeded the set usage time limit. Such computer timing shutdown device with a usage time limit, however, still has significant drawbacks. Firstly, a user needs to additionally purchase this device for timing control and thus increases the expenditure thereof. Secondly, as the timing shutdown device cannot be locked onto the computer, the user needs to remove this device when operating the computer. In such case, the function of limiting usage time would fail. Thirdly, if the key element of the timing shutdown device is lost, the user is unable to cancel the set usage time limit, thereby causing inconvenience in use.
Therefore, the problem to be solved herein is to provide a simple and efficient technique for limiting usage time of the information equipment, by which unlimited use of the information equipment by teenagers can be avoided and data stored in the information equipment can be prevented from being easily stolen or accessed by unauthorized users.